Fall
by sythlar
Summary: Eight years after A:TLA, Toph has feelings about Zuko. What a couple of losers. Lots of (im)mature language, because adult Toph.
1. Chapter 1 - Fall

Toph could only handle formality for so long. The banquet was celebrating joint ventures between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, which she could really get behind, but fuck, it was the most boring thing she'd witnessed in a long time.

Even subtly pranking the guests wasn't fun after a while. You rotate the earth under a guy to make him crash into his secret crush, you trip some asshole who's harassing a girl, you throw pebbles into some lady's elaborate hair until they all fall out while she's dancing, and then what? Anything more destructive would be rude, and she actually gave a shit about her hosts.

Seated at the Firelord's right hand as a guest of honor, she'd stayed as long as she had to out of politeness to Iroh and Zuko. Then she booked it. She didn't even know this part of the palace that well, but it didn't matter. Anywhere was better than the banquet hall. She ended up in the gardens, which were more extensive than she expected. There was a nice corner between a few hedges, conveniently out of anyone line of sight, with some grass and a boulder. She bent a niche for her head and reclined on the rock, taking a long, deep breath.

Familiar footsteps resonated in the distance, but it took at least a half an hour for them to pitter-patter all over the garden maze and stumble upon her resting spot. The idiot kept opening gates and walking around obstacles instead of hopping over them or burrowing under them.

When he finally got there, he was quiet for a long time. Maybe he'd just leave and assume she didn't know he was there-but no, he wasn't that clueless.

"The stars are beautiful tonight," the Firelord said.

"If you say so." There was a chill in the air and the scent of burning wood, a combination that promised winter soon, even here near the equator. She made herself focus on that, and not his presence. Maybe he'd still go away. "Everyone says that, but it doesn't mean much to someone who's never seen them."

"Some nights you can't see as many, or they look weak and far away." He sat down on the grass beside her. "They're spread out across the sky when you look up at night like...metal embedded in rock, I guess. Tonight there aren't any clouds blocking the view, and it's a new moon. The stars stand out. Some of them even look like they're pulsing with life in many different colors, like dragon fire. Actually, you came to the darkest part of the gardens, and the stars are bright enough that I can see you by their light."

Toph closed her eyes, trying to imagine what he described, but her mind defied her, as it usually did. Color meant nothing to her. It was something that let seeing people differentiate between identical objects, and there were a thousand names for these different colors, and none of it meant anything.

"Have you always been blind?" Zuko asked quietly.

"Yeah." She opened her eyes and turned towards his voice. "I was born with my eyes like this. Cloudy and green, right? I don't know exactly what, but some part of them is missing, so they've never worked." She shrugged. "Other than physical details and color, I don't miss much."

"I know. I couldn't believe my eyes when you beat someone at Pai Sho tonight."

"All the expensive sets are carved, not just painted. Are you smiling, Sparky?" She grinned. "I've never heard you smile before." On an impulse, she raised her hand to his face and touched his lips. That was a mistake, she told herself. A mistake. Stop. He was smiling, broadly at first, though he closed his lips when she started to touch them. Her fingertips trailed down to his chin and along his jaw. He was clean-shaven, with only a hint of stubble in a few places. Her fingers reached higher, along his cheeks, and then he had her wrists in his hands.

"I don't think you want to see that," he murmured.

"What, your scar? Everyone else gets to." With her fingers still on his face, she knew he didn't find that humorous, but he still let go of her hands.

The skin on that side of his face transitioned abruptly from smoothness to damage; it had been a tightly controlled burst of fire, Toph realized. She swallowed against the horror of that thought. A father had intentionally delivered this injury, knowing full well that his son would be scarred for life at the very least. The remaining skin had formed into ridges that sometimes ran parallel and sometimes crossed each other, leaving the entire area like a hilly island on his face. Nearer the eye, the damage was more severe, the ridges deeper and drier. With one hand tracing the outline of each eye, she compared them. The burned one was permanently half-closed, even when his eyes were open. He closed them, and she felt the deep scarring on the lid. Ozai had been aiming for his son's eyes. The horror had never reached her when it was a story about a prince; feeling the damage on a friend's face was a different experience.

"I had no idea it was like this." Her hands traced his skin back to his neck and upward, comparing what each hand felt, pushing his hair out of the way as she moved. His ear was burned badly enough that most of the outer structure was missing.

"It feels wrong to complain when you're blind," Zuko said quietly.

"Being born without something just happens. It's nature. This isn't."

"I know. It's ugly."

"That's not what I meant." Somehow, she'd ended up with his face cradled between her hands. A mistake. "I mean that what happened to you was so wrong, but you've won. You're here, and you're whole. That doesn't just happen, you earned it."

His breathing changed in a way she hadn't heard before.

"What?" she asked, going cold. She started to pull her hands away.

"Don't." He caught her wrists again. "Toph, may I kiss you?"

She hadn't expected that. No, go away. "Yes."

His breath against her skin was hot, and she could feel his heart racing through the earth beneath them. His lips brushed hers once, then a lingering second time, warm and tender. By the time they drew away from each other, Toph could feel that her face was flushed.

"You probably don't care," he murmured, "but you're very beautiful."

His words shocked her into reality again. She straightened, took a deep breath. "We shouldn't be doing this."

"Why not?" He touched her chin, and it took all her self control not to kiss him again, harder, in defiance of her own common sense.

"You're the Firelord." She was speaking far too fast, but she couldn't slow herself down. "You need to be in there, looking for a wife who can give you stability in the Fire Nation. In the streets they're still protesting your willing release of the colonies and these people probably agr-"

"Do you think I can forget that? I inherited a kingdom in ruins. Is that what you want to talk about right now?" Eight years ago, he would have lost his temper, and it would have been easy to make him go away. But no, he'd had to grow into this reasonable man that she actually fucking respected. "For a few minutes, I just want to be Zuko."

"I'm not infringing on your identity. Personally, I think the Firelord and Zuko are the same person, and trying to separate them is your problem. If you pulled your head out of your ass for a second, you might recall that I'm Toph Beifong, and I was no less Toph in that banquet hall than I am out here, telling you to pull your head out of your ass." She sighed. "Look, I care about you. Any idiot can see that; I don't usually stick around anywhere but my school, I hate formality, and I've been at the palace a week."

"The kiss was a pretty big hint, too."

She ignored him. "But where is this going? You're doing important work here. I'm not exactly helping with that. If I'm a distraction, I should leave before we hurt each other."

"That's the problem." She could feel him running his fingers through his hair, mostly because he knocked his metal headpiece awry. It was supposed to be pure gold, but there was a lot of earth in it, she realized idly. "When you're here, you make me think more clearly. I get bogged down in all this guilt and anger and you cut right through it and show me what I have to do. I think I need you to be here, Toph."

"I'm blind and rude," she reminded him, "and Earth Kingdom nobility. If I stick around, you're going to have problems."

"I'll have more if you don't," he said quietly. "I've already decided not to marry for political advantage. My family has been doing that for generations and it ended in insanity."

"That's stupid. You're stupid. If they hadn't been doing that for generations, they would have lost control of the entire country."

"I don't care. Toph, stay another month. Train your students here with my soldiers. Come with me to visit Yu Dao in two weeks." He reached for her hand, and she slapped him away.

With that, she'd finally riled his temper; he exhaled a firey-hot breath, his heart beating hard.

"You don't understand, you unbelievable moron," she growled. "If I stay here, we're going to fall in love."

"That's why I'm asking you to stay!" he snapped back. "I'm already in love with you!"

For a long moment, the only sound was the lazy chirp of crickets.

"This is a mess, Sparky," she murmured. She reached for his hand, feeling his anger melt away, pulling him closer and closer until she could feel his body heat and smell whatever scent he'd been sprayed with for the stupid event. It didn't suit him. He put his arms around her, and she leaned against him, listening to his voice echo in his chest. They must have looked like morons, sitting in the darkest corner of the garden, hugging next to a huge-ass boulder.

"Yeah," he murmured. "But we'll make it work."


	2. Chapter 2 - First Date

She was the one who had suggested meeting quietly the next night if he wanted to be just Zuko. Suki was exactly the friend Toph needed for that; she informed the Kyoshi Warriors, quietly, that the Firelord may be visited by a clever earthbender around midnight, and not to be alarmed.

In the morning, she'd gone out to the marketplace and found a nice chunk of gold. It was small and just impure enough to be malleable, but they still overcharged her. After dinner alone in her room, she passed the time figuring out exactly how she wanted it to look and feel.

At midnight, she earthbent her way into Zuko's room. She could feel him standing there, his pulse quickening when she stepped in and closed the wall behind her. She beckoned him closer, and he walked up without hesitation.

Damn him, he was tall. She could hear his breathing and the rustle of his clothing and realized his chest was at her eye level. She reached forward and traced the lines of his clothes over his chest; regular cotton, not Firelord finery. Good. All of that touching had his pulse racing, though.

"So we're on a date. Where do you want to go, Sparky?" she asked, returning her hands to her hips, where they damn well belonged.

"I, uh, I was planning tea in the side room. I'm pretty good at making it."

"Right, you worked in your uncle's shop during the war." She'd forgotten.

"Yeah." He led the way into the next room, pulling open a door in a decorative partition wall for her. There was a nice table in the center of the room, a pai sho set, and a full tea service. She sat opposite him, cross-legged on the floor.

"Doesn't the Fire Nation have a tea ceremony tradition?"

"Yes, but I don't know any. They've been out of fashion for at least a hundred years. I learned to make tea in your country." She could hear the hint of a smile, or smirk, or something in his voice as he portioned out the tea and heated the pot in his hands.

"Ba Sing Se is the worst city I've ever been to," she said, "but the tea was pretty good."

"Uncle says it's a lot better now. The Dai Li are gone and the Earth King is married. I hear it's peaceful."

"You haven't been?"

"No. I haven't felt safe leaving the capital without leaving strong leadership here. I'd trust Uncle to act as regent, but aside from attending the banquet, which was a surprise, he doesn't want to leave his shop or get involved."

"He's going to have to," Toph shrugged. "It's too important for him to just blow off like that. But, hey, I thought you wanted to be just Zuko tonight. We can discuss this later."

She could actually feel him relax as she said that, the hidden tension in his body draining. He reached for her cup and poured out her tea, passing it back to her carefully.

"Thanks," she murmured, cradling it in her hands. "It's cold; tea was a good choice."

There was a silence, and a strange fluctuation in his vitals. She listened intently as he spoke. "If you're cold, come sit next to me."

Intrigued, she put her teacup down and walked around the table, sitting a handspan away from him. He cupped his hands, and from the sudden heat she knew he'd created a little flame in them; she ran her hands over it, smiling at the warmth.

"Firebenders don't get cold, you know," he said. "We can warm our own bodies in cold environments."

"That's a nice perk." She toasted both sides of her left hand. The right snuck up behind him, slowly. "Is it automatic, or do you have to know where the cold is?" Abruptly, she touched the cold back of her hand to his neck.

"Toph!" he shouted.

"So you have to know," she grinned.

He made a strange, quiet sound that Toph identified, after a moment, as a weak-ass Zuko laugh. "Yes, I have to know. I can't keep myself warm when I'm asleep or unconscious."

"What about that time you burned my feet?"

"I-that was-I woke up to do that. I mean, I wasn't awake enough to know it was you, but I-I wasn't asleep."

She was already laughing. "You go from romantic to awkward so fast, Sparky. It's like you're trying to set a record. Is this how you always are with girls?"

He ran a hand through his hair, and it sailed through smoothly. He must be wearing it loose. "My previous girlfriends had nice, linear, romantic conversations with me instead of throwing me for a loop twice a minute."

"If my main ambition in life was getting laid by the Firelord, I'd probably talk like that, too."

He had the temerity to act embarrassed, picking up his tea to mask it.

"It's only my side ambition," she added.

He coughed, midswallow.

"You're the one who begged me to stay a while," she reminded him, grinning, as she felt for a napkin on the table and gave it to him. "You literally asked for this."

"Surprisingly, I don't regret it." He cleaned the spilled tea and tossed the napkin back on the table. "I hope you've decided to come to Yu Dao with me, too."

"My school is outside of Yu Dao, you know, and two of my three best students are contracted by the mayor to do police work there. I'd be going that way anyway." She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. "Why are you so uneasy about it? Your heartrate is going insane."

"Most of the Fire Nation is opposed to what I'm doing there, and the Restoration movement isn't thrilled, either. Tomorrow I'm spending all day listening to my war council complain about it." He sounded ten years older when he talked about politics.

"Aw, fuck 'em." She felt his pulse change and slid her hand up, exploring his face again. "You've spent the last few years dedicating yourself to fixing this place. You're doing well. And again, you asked to be just Zuko tonight."

"Sometimes I'm not sure if I remember who Zuko is," he said.

"Get over yourself. 'Zuko' is defined by whatever you are, no matter what it is."

"I'm sorry," he said, taking a deep breath. "I'm...not great at this."

She didn't release his face, reveling in its shape. She knew his so well, and yet his face was so foreign to her. Every moment was a revelation. "Relaxing is a skill, and you're comparing yourself to me, the grandmaster. Cut yourself some slack. What you need to do is distract your mind from running in circles all the time." Her thumb ran over his lips. They were pleasantly full, though not as full as hers.

His heart was beating in a new way. A good way, but unfamiliar.

She leaned in and kissed him. His hands slipped behind her neck, untying her headband and letting the full length of her hair tumble down her back, lifting it and letting it fall like silken rain from his fingers.

"I can come back later," said Uncle Iroh.

Toph and Zuko jerked their heads backwards. How had she missed Iroh's presence? Toph wondered. The old man wasn't exactly subtle.

But then, she'd been distracted.

"N-no," Zuko stammered. "Uncle, p-please-sit down-have-have some Jasmine tea."

Toph took a deep breath and faced the table. Iroh was shaking with suppressed laughter; she could feel it through the floor, through the table, in her very bones. If she'd been deprived of all of her senses, she was sure she would still feel Iroh's gleeful presence, somehow.

Well, at least there was no doubt that the old man approved.

Toph left a short game of pai sho later. The first date was a bust, and she knew just who to blame.

"I can't just not let Iroh in," Suki whispered. "The Firelord has a standing order to let his uncle in whenever he asks."

"Well," Toph said, irritated. "I mean, that's fair, but the fact remains that you clit-blocked me."

"Are you kidding?" Suki hissed. "Zuko is the king of cockblocks. It's not my fault that karma is catching up with every time he ruined the moment for me and Sokka or Katara and Aang because he wasn't paying attention."

"I didn't do anything to deserve this," Toph whined. But her mind was already barreling forward towards the next time she and Zuko could meet up. Normal date places wouldn't do, obviously. She'd have to think outside the box.

"We'll make it work," he'd told her. And they still would; just not in a conventional way. That was starting to become a pattern for them.


	3. Chapter 3 - Second Date

When the coalbirds began to squawk at the rising sun, Toph asked one of the Kyoshi Warriors to show her the way to Iroh's quarters.

"I hope I didn't wake you." She was left alone with him, and he led the way to his sitting room, low pillows scattered around a large round table. It felt like a firepit; Toph idly wondered if there was a chimney in the ceiling for the smoke to escape. It would be as easy as a subtle tap, tap of her fingernails against a wall to use her seismic sense and find out, but she couldn't be assed.

"Not at all." Iroh lowered himself to the cushions, bones creaking. "When you get to a certain age, you do not need very much sleep anymore."

Toph sat opposite him, respectfully. Unlike most of the people she'd known, the old man actually deserved her respect, now more than ever. "I want to apologize for what you saw last night."

"Don't worry about that. It was good to see him doing something a man his age should be doing. He has not left the city since he returned from visiting his mother," Iroh said heavily. "That was over five years ago. Until you came to stay, he didn't show emotion anymore, not even anger. I worried for him every day."

Before she could bring herself to speak again, she could feel heat from the center of the table, and knew he was shoring up the fire with his bending. Knowing Iroh, there was probably a teapot involved, too.

"I know that Zuko has to attend to his responsibilities before his personal feelings," Toph went on, slowly. "I won't pretend anything else is the truth. But if he doesn't relax a little, he's going to snap. He's doing everything with practically no help."

There was tea involved, of fucking course. She heard a clank as he hung a kettle above the fire. "He has been doing a good job," Iroh said. "But my nephew is a stubborn man, and I am in no condition to give him very much help anymore. He needs to find new people he can trust."

"I'm still working on that," Toph said wryly. "In fact, I wanted to ask your opinion on a few people. And a few touchy situations cropping up in Yu Dao."

They had tea as they discussed the court, and it was delicious, as it always was. Toph left as soon as she'd finished her cup. There were things to do.

—-

"Today we're going to talk about what can and cannot be ignited!" Toph's voice was loud enough to carry across the training yard and echo off the outer palace walls. A staggered row of trainees stood before her; nine of her own lily-livered students, wildly disparate in age and disposition, and nine men and women of the Firelord's army, standing at ease. In the corner was the Firelord's steward, his brow already furrowed. Toph had already forgotten the man's name. "What burns? Wood. Plants. Hair. Things that can be waterbent." She flicked her fingers dismissively. "We don't care. We bend metal and stone. We don't have to worry about ignition. Right?"

Her students were still for a long moment, trying to think of exceptions. They knew she loved trick questions. Sul was the one who finally said, sofly, "yes?"

"NO!" she bellowed.

Her students were startled, but not surprised. (Her best students wouldn't have been startled, she reflected, but she'd left them in charge of the school in her absence in exchange for half the incoming tuition.) The Fire Army soldiers were too well trained to react at all.

"If our metal and rock was pure and clean, of course we wouldn't have to worry about it. But it isn't." She raised one hand, ripping a corner of the decorative stone roof from the palace building.

"Lady Beifong!" The steward cried. "I beseech you!"

"Cool it, hotman," Toph said, bringing the rock down to hover in front of her. "I know what I'm doing. Here," she said, pointing at the top surface of the rock. "Moss and shit growing all over, right? None of the stone in the training yard is gonna have this, they get scorched too often, but out in the wild? In the earth kingdom? This is everywhere. So say you've got a rogue firebender. You pull up your stone to block him. And, bam! Now your hair's on fire. How'd that happen? It happened because you're not thinking about your surroundings. You're not thinking about all the possibilities. Remember: always stay?" she prompted them.

"At least two moves ahead," her students recited.

"Right. So, hotmen," she addressed the Fire soldiers, because she loved hundred-year-old slang. It gave her a default nickname for an entire nation of people at once. "Queue up. You're gonna take turns lighting up my students. Don't hold back. If you burn them they'll remember the lesson."

She could say one thing for Fire Nation soldiers: they knew how to obey an order. They didn't hold back. As she supervised, her feet square on the ground and her arms locked behind her, they tore through her students one by one. Still, to her surprise, none of the novice metalbenders was burned. She counted out multiples of nine, a full rotation of sparring partners; after thirty six matches, everyone was sluggish.

"Alright, yellowbellies," she shouted. "Break for dinner. I hope you enjoy it, because it might be your last. Tomorrow you're training under the Fire Nation banner, and General Shuurai has been instructed not to give a damn about you. Dismissed!"

The nervous steward showed them out, metalbenders and firebenders alike. They were shuffling. Toph hated it when they shuffled. It was such a lazy habit, and it sent careless, fuzzy shocks through the ground that grated on her nerves.

She found her own way out of the military wing and back to her room, though there were surely servants hovering nearby that had been told to stay out of her way. As a hero of the Hundred Year War and a personal friend of the Firelord, she'd been granted impressive lodgings. The servant that had showed them to her had assured her that they were beautiful, but that didn't mean very much to her. Mostly they were large, and half floored in wooden panels, so there were enormous holes in her vision. She could guess what they contained by context; one enormous patch was probably the bed, a smaller one the wardrobe and washbasin, another the writing desk on a raised dias. The bathroom was stone, fortunately, with a big tub hewn out of the rock. Toph was able to relax a little, bending herself an outcropping to sit on, and get good and clean before shaking out her clothes and putting them back on. To her frustration she hadn't gotten much taller over time, but she'd filled out into a womanly figure, which meant she had to replace her clothes bit by bit. In the end, she didn't hate the results. Her travel clothes fit decently, probably looked the same as they used to, and her meteorite cuff was a reliable source of bending material in case of emergency. She had to work with metal epaulets some day, though. Everyone said they would look imposing, and she liked the idea of that.

It was easy enough to bend a comfortable sleeping place for herself once she was dressed, letting her hair dry over the edge of the outcropping while she picked her ears. It wasn't long before she fell into a restful sleep.

—-

A courier knocked on the door in the middle of a pleasant dream.

"What the everloving shit do you want?"

The courier bowed so swiftly and deeply that Toph could feel a little whoosh as her head swept by. "Honored Lady Beifong, I have been sent to give you a message."

"Fine, tell me what it is."

"Honored Lady, it is written here-"

"I'm blind," Toph interrupted.

"Oh, I am so sorry, Honored Lady." The woman bowed again, and the gust of air made Toph sneeze this time. "It is directly from the Firelord. He wishes to see you now."

Huh. That was sort of how her dream had started, too. The memory made her gruffer than she intended. "Fine, whatever."

The courier bowed again. "Please follow me, Lady Beifong." Like the soldiers, the courier kept her cool against Toph's personality. She was impressed enough not to harangue the woman further on the way to the family quarters of the palace. Most of the rooms felt empty, or had a raised floor of wood or carpet that prevented her from fully 'seeing' what was inside. The room the courier brought her to was large, with a raised stone pedestal in the center that bore a table and something else. A fire was part of the arrangement. Did every room in the palace have a vent for smoke? she wondered.

To her surprise, the courier didn't follow her in, but closed the door behind her. Zuko was the only one in the room.

"What's this?" Toph asked, climbing atop the low pedestal and taking a seat beside him at the table.

"I decided to make you dinner myself." He actually sounded nervous, which amused Toph; he was the one who had actually dated before. She'd been too busy inventing an entirely new subset of bending, teaching hundreds of people to utilize it, and telling her occasional suitors to fuck right off because she was doing things.

"That's really nice," she said cautiously. "Smells like fish?"

"Gull-salmon." She could hear the hesitant smile in his voice, and he reached a hand out towards her. "Come over here and t-"

His next words were drowned out by...something. Something deeper and louder than anything she'd ever heard before, that drowned out Zuko's heartbeat and his voice and everything around Toph and left her alone. Blind.

It faded as quickly as it had come.

"-happened? Are you alright?" Zuko's voice returned, concerned, and she felt his hands gripping her shoulders tight. "You look like you're going to fall over."

"Something's happening." From some strange, detached portion of her mind that was still reeling in shock, she noted that she sounded panicked. She'd never heard herself panic before.

It began again, building up more slowly, but this time it was louder. Toph threw herself in the direction of the wall and felt her way to the door. She could feel Zuko's hands grasping at her, trying to hold her back, but she needed to get outside. She ran down the hallway by memory, scraping her shoulder against a decorative carving on the wall, and the something was becoming physical. It was rumbling.

By the time she burst out of the front gates of the palace, the ground was shaking. She fell to her hands and knees, embraced the deafening pain, and listened.


	4. Chapter 4 - Shit Happens

For a few agonizing moments, Toph was the most sighted person in the world. The irony wasn't lost on her, though she couldn't laugh at it, not yet. Maybe not ever.

She had felt the earth shake by itself before, of course. In Gaoling, there had been earthquakes every year or so. They had been small, as earthquakes go. Her parents noticed glassware that had fallen to the ground and broken, or pictures that hung askew on the walls, and had their servants fix it; but all Toph could think about, at those times, was how much power it took to move _that_ much earth _that _quickly. If one could feel how deep and widespread it was, one knew that a thousand earthbenders in unison couldn't muster a small earthquake if they tried. Maybe a powerful spirit could, but if it was angry enough to do that, it would flatten cities before it was satisfied. It was easier not to think about it at all.

This was not a small earthquake.

She no longer had to send a shock through the earth and feel the waves that came back; the rolling quake brought an image of the entire city to her. She could feel it through the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers, everything in sharp focus, all the way to the very outskirts of the capital. Every rattling brick building felt as though it was growing out of the earth, for that moment. Even the sandy ocean floor was brought into greater focus, and she could feel the immense weight of the ocean pressing down on her and found herself gasping for air as if she was truly drowning.

The worst of the shaking was coming. She could feel it as surely as her own heartbeat. As she knelt outside the palace gates, Toph's mind moved quickly. It coming from miles away, almost due east, in the sea. The earth was shaking vertically, mostly. The palace was made of solid stone, but most of the city was brick. It was fall, and moss was growing on the north face of every roof, weeds through every crack in the pavement, and a city full of firebenders was about to panic.

Damage control.

She couldn't reach the whoel city, but in the market district and the upper circle were within her range, so she settled into the best stance she could when the ground was beginning to really shake. All at once she was aware of Zuko behind her, in his own firebending stance. He moved close behind her, bracing her body with his, putting his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down. With a fast and precise movement of her hands, she sent out massive stone struts to tent the people inside a gross of buildings from the rubble. As a massive headache claimed her focus, the earth knocked her off her feet. She landed on her chest, the wind knocked out of her; and then Zuko landed on top of her, and she wheezed again, digging her fingers into the shaking ground.

There was nothing she could do to dampen the destructive waves of earth that rolled through the city. They were too powerful, even for Toph Beifong.

It felt like an eternity before the shaking stopped. In the aftermath she heard silence, and her labored breathing, and Zuko's, and screams, and then dull footsteps.

Her students were rushing out the gate, soldiers and palace servants flooding around them. She knew it because she heard their voices; their heartbeats and breathing weren't _there_ when she slapped the ground for a reading. Maybe, Toph reasoned with herself, maybe she was stll in shock. Maybe the earth was still moving a little and drowning out the little sounds.

"Sifu, we need to go help people!" Toph's youngest student, Zel, shouted.

At that moment, Toph felt she'd never been more proud of them. "You and one other stay here and assist people in the palace," she gasped. Her lungs still felt on fire, and now the air was dusty, too."The rest of you come with me."

They went to the outskirts first, riding some nobleman's balcony that had fallen down, two students on each side propelling the chunk of stone along the ground. They earthbent bricks off of families huddled in a corner, off of hippocows and komodo rhinos trapped in stables. Off of a mother and the crushed body of her child. Off of a home where no one had survived. Sometimes when they began to move the bricks, the rest of them would fall, and there was nothing they could do. Worst was when firebenders panicked and tried to blast the stone off, and of course, there was something flammable _on_ the stone. Hadn't she told them? Toph thought to herself, biting back manic laughter. Hadn't she _just_ lectured her students about this?

It was an hour of bloody work before Toph felt something new. Something worse.

They had lifted a piece of wall off a house when Toph turned away, shifted her feet, and wiped her eyes (it was the dust, she told herself, that was making her eyes water). Her toes sensed something, like a dough roller sliding across the ocean floor, crushing the earth beneath with its weight. It was miles away, but it was coming fast.

"Shit, motherfucker, fuck, shit," she said.

"W-what is it, sifu?" Lo Ting was one of the students that had come with her, and his familiar voice was somehow less grating now.

"Get..." she began, then paused to think. "Get four others and meet me by the docks, immediately."

It felt like an hour, but in reality it was a scant few moments before they were organized. Her students moved quickly.

"If you have ever been passionate about earthbending," Toph said to her assembled students, "this is the time to let it show."

They were certainly a ragtag group. A fat kid (Lo Ting), a short kid, a lanky teenager, a guy who always smelled like pee, and a sweet kid with an uncontrollable tic. She knew their names, but wouldn't allow her mind the brief moments it would need to recall them. No time, not now.

"We have a mountain of water coming at us," she went on. "No idea if waterbenders would even help, but it doesn't matter, because we don't have any. My best idea is a wall at the shore, but keep in mind it's gonna have to be massively thick at the bottom. You guys got anything better?"

"We can erect it in thin layers," said Pee Guy. "First a tall one at the shore, then shorter ones as we move back."

"Maybe we can make a tunnel underneath the city to take some of the water?" said Tic Girl.

"It's just too fucking much water," Toph muttered, massaging her head. The pain was pounding, now, and beneath the throb there was the growing awareness of the wave coming closer and closer, pressing on her mind. "We could cancel the wave by concussing the earth in opposite time with it, but that...wouldn't work, we'd have to go too deep." She knew she was grumbling to herself, almost inaudible, now, but like a turtleduck retreating into its shell, she couldn't stop herself from pulling away in her panic.

"W-what if we raise up some pillars?" Lo Ting said hesitantly.

Toph looked up, eyes wide, and snapped. "That's it. Not pillars, _pillar_. We'll raise the whole city up."

She didn't need to see to know her students looked doubtful. "Sifu, is that even possible?" said Pee Guy.

"For us? Have a little confidence. It's the only option, and we're the greatest earthbenders in the world. If we can't do this, no one can."

She had no idea. It seemed far-fetched.

They rounded up the rest of the students and spaced themselves around the city, mostly at the outskirts, and did as Toph had taught them long ago: propelled themselves by breaking their focus into two. One half focused on adhering one chunk of earth to their feet; the other focused on pushing the other chunk of earth away. Toph stood near the center of the city, pushing her focus as far as it would go, encompassing almost all of the city within her range. As they rose, she rearranged the stone around them to create a pillar beneath their slice of earth. It was the most powerful she had ever felt; her head hurt so much it felt as though it would collapse into itself, and at the same time it was exhilarating. _All of this is part of my body_, she was saying with the channeling of her chi, _and I am pushing the rest of the world away. I am raising my body up. It will be. Move to accommodate._

They inched up slowly, so slowly. A finger's breadth, a hand's, an arm's length, the height of a man. Of ten men, of a hundred, and then, at Toph's signal, they stopped. As a wall of water rose on the horizon and then crashed down around them, she sunk to the ground and the world went black.


	5. Chapter 5 - Zuko

Aang, Katara, and Sokka had arrived the day after. When he saw Appa descending into the palace courtyard, Zuko was relieved for all the wrong reasons. His mind acknowledged that Aang would be able to rescue a lot of people, Katara was a massively skilled healer who would be willing to help victims out in the city, and Sokka kept a cool head in emergencies nowadays.

But in his heart he just wanted them to save Toph.

Her students had carried her into the palace on their shoulders. He wished he could banish that image from his mind: her small body, ashy and pale, limp and lifeless. It haunted him every second of the day, made worse by the fact that he couldn't be at her side. He had responsibilities, and the healers claimed she needed calm and quiet, not the Firelord working beside her.

That didn't stop him from imagining what she would advise him, if she were conscious. That was how he ended up telling her students to raise roads out of the city, then reassigned half his standing army to rescue and construction work and shipped them out of the city. It was an elegant solution to two problems at once, and he wished he could share it with her.

He received word from his mother, his sister, and the prison warden that the family was safe. Azula stayed with Mai often, now that she was a more tolerable human being, and Mai's estate was out in the western mountains, where the shaking hadn't been so bad. After a string of breakups, they'd parted ways amicably, and she'd married some young nobleman Zuko didn't know very well. He knew he and Mai weren't a good match, but he had been jealous of her happiness for a long time, until...

He thought about Toph's lifeless body again and swallowed the pain and anxiety. After a lifetime of practice, he was pretty good at being a meaningless container for angst.

At least when Appa arrived he had friends around.

Aang was the first one to reach him, and he hugged him hard. They were like brothers, or at least what Zuko imagined normal brothers were like. Who did he have as a role model for brotherly love, anyway? His father and his uncle? Not helpful.

"We came as soon as we heard," Aang said. He was a grown man now, of course, but somehow Zuko always remembered him as the child he'd been when they first met. He still had the same sincere expression on his face, though the features had changed. "What can we do to help?"

"Katara needs to look at Toph," Zuko blurted. Twenty four years old, and he still couldn't make his tongue do his bidding.

"I knew it," said Sokka, jumping down from Appa's saddle. "Only Toph would be crazy enough to lift an entire city up five hundred feet." He reached up to help his sister down.

Katara was sliding from Appa's back, a long red and orange cloak around her shoulders. She'd taken to wearing air nomad clothing sometimes after she and Aang had married. "What happened to her?"

"She collapsed afterwards. That's all the healers know."

Katara didn't delay; she was already going to the medical wing, and the three men followed.

—-

Aang took Appa to help some of the smaller coastal villages, which had probably been lashed by both the quake and the wave afterwards. Sokka, who knew Toph's students well, took them out to build shelters in the outer neighborhoods of the capital.

Katara had plenty to do in the medical wing, and even Zuko knew that babysitting his worries was the most irritating part of her job. That didn't mean he could stop himself.

"She's still the same," Katara said gently.

"Do you know what's wrong with her?" Even to his own ears, Zuko's voice was almost unrecognizable; hushed, strained, thick with anxiety. It had been a bad three days.

"I couldn't detect anything big," she said hesitantly, "and neither could your healers. Aang thinks something went wrong with the flow of her chi, since she was pushing her limits."

When Toph was in motion, performing the harsh, powerful forms that were typical of earthbending, she seemed immovable. Now, it was obvious how delicate her body was. She looked small and fragile, her long black hair a tangled halo around a face that looked as though it were made of cold porcelain and not living flesh. Her chest rose and fell with the strength of a butterfly's wing, a tiny flutter of life, beautiful and fleeting.

"She's tough," Katara went on, following her friend's gaze. "She'll pull through this, Zuko."

"I know," he lied.

—-

He wasn't sleeping anymore.

Five days after the earthquake, he could feel the bags under his eyes and the constant pressure of fatigue weighing down his limbs. Honestly, he couldn't make himself care.

He went to see Toph in place of his daily firebending practice. He couldn't bend; it reminded him of the countless duels they'd fought in that very training field. That had probably been when he first fell in love with her.

She was the same each time he saw her. Once, he touched her cheek, and her flesh was cold and clammy.

The Firelord never cried, but on the fifth night, Zuko did. Alone in his room, he buried his face in his hands and let it out until he had no more tears left to cry, just a hollow feeling inside.

Afterwards, he went back to Toph, though it was near midnight. Katara pulled up a chair for him and poured him some water, as if he were visiting her home and not Toph's sickbed. Katara looked haggard, too, her hair loopies asymmetrical and her necklace askew, but Zuko knew he looked even worse. He hadn't bothered with a mirror in a while. Even on his better days, all they showed him was an ugly scar and a face that looked more like Ozai's every day.

"Zuko, be honest with me," Katara murmured, pressing the cup of water into his hands. "We're all worried for her, but you're obsessing. What's bothering you?"

The water was surprisingly soothing. Had he been remembering to eat and drink? Zuko wondered. His steward had probably tried to force him. He couldn't remember. "I asked her to stay longer. She could've been back at her school and safe right now."

"And, what, most of the people in your city would have died?"

He looked at the floor. Glared at it, really.

"No one can stop Toph from doing crazy things, anyway," Katara went on gently. "That's how she is. She knows the risks she takes. Do you think anyone could have stopped her?"

"No." He ran his fingers through his hair. A few hours of crying and raging had left it greasy and limp.

"Besides, you shouldn't give up. If she's held on this long, she's probably holding on for good. She's young and healthy. Her body just needs time to recover."

The last reserves of self-control he possessed were draining out of his body. He rested his eyes on the heels of his hands, rubbing them mercilessly. "She can't die," he muttered. "I love her too much."

"We all do." Katara put her hand on his shoulder.

"No," he said harshly, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm _in_ _love_ with her, Katara. I told her I loved her, and she said it was a bad idea. She said we'd both get hurt." He was rambling now, but he couldn't stop the flow of words anymore. "But she stayed anyway, just a little while longer, because I asked her to. I never thought she'd be the one who got hurt."

She stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. "You and Toph? Really?"

"Yeah. I know it seems odd, but we just...fit. I'm happiest when I'm with her." He sighed, running a hand through his hair again. "I don't know what she sees in me. Maybe nothing. A few days ago I was agonizing about how much I want to marry her, and exactly how hard she'd turn me down if I ever asked, but that doesn't matter anymore. I just want her to make it."

"I don't care what Aang and Sokka are going to say," Katara said softly. "I think that's really sweet. And you know, I'm pretty sure you're going to get a chance to ask her, so maybe you should make plans for that."

He thought about it. For the first time in days, he almost smiled. "Do you think there's even a chance she'd say yes?"

Katara shrugged. "There's only one way to find out."


	6. Chapter 6 - Awake

The thing most people didn't realize about Toph was that she was always conscious for a while before she opened her eyes. Being blind, she wasn't eager to _see_ a new day in the morning; if she was, she'd lazily rest a toe on the ground or a finger on a brick wall. It was more restful to keep her eyes closed while she was laying down, so she did. She'd never really thought about it until now.

Drifting slowly back to the waking world, she heard running water first. It was a gentle trickle, as if from a small fountain rather than a faucet, but she was sure she was indoors. It didn't really concern her very much; it soothed her sharp headache and let her rest easily. Since she was on a bed she couldn't feel much of the earth around her, but she was fine with that. In her condition, she didn't really give a shit.

But when a familiar voice started singing a sweet lullaby about the Southern Lights making a colorful show in the sky, she finally decided it was time to take a stand.

Her eyelashes were stuck together, and so were her chapped lips, but it was easier to pry her mouth open. Her tongue was painfully dry as she rolled it around her mouth, trying to make words come out.

"Air Queen," she croaked. "Shut the fuck up."

"Toph!" Cold hands on her forehead, and the hum of healing water. "How are you feeling?"

"Thirsty. Is Zuko okay?"

Katara laughed and carefully bent some of the healing water into her mouth. "Is that better? I'll fill up a cup for you."

"Yeah." Carefully, she pushed herself up on her elbows, and her head only spun a little. "Is Zuko okay?" she repeated, concerned.

"Yes, of course. Why wouldn't he be? He keeps coming by to check on you."

Toph exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Okay. How long have I been out, and what's been happening?"

"Lay back down," Katara ordered her, pressing a wooden cup into her hand. "You're not ready to jump back into action yet."

Grudgingly, she obeyed.

It turned out she'd been sleeping for a week, and Aang thought she had bent so har she sprained her chi, or some crazy shit. "The way you earthbent was really permanent for some reason," Katara finished, after a solid rundown of where everyone was and what they were doing. "So your students just built roads from the hill instead of trying to lower it back down again."

She knew why; it was how she'd sliced and layered the earth to raise them up. Her students had followed her lead and done a lot of the heavily lifting, but most of them probably didn't grasp the overarching strategy. It had been the fastest and strongest way to do the job. She took a long swig of water as Katara continued.

"Anyway, everyone is talking about you saving the city."

Toph shrugged. "It was mostly my students. They're actually pretty good in a crisis. Who knew?"

Katara laughed. "Sokka claimed he knew you were responsible as soon as he saw the capital on an island."

Toph smiled. "Snoozles remembers I'm the greatest earthbender in the world. The rest of you forget it too easily." As Toph drained the remainder of her water and waited for Katara to give her a refill, she heard the door open and close. It was a nuisance not to be able to feel heartbeats and breathing.

"Honored Lady Beifong! You're awake!"

Toph would recognize the nervous voice of Zuko's steward anywhere, but today he seemed genuinely happy to see her. Whatever; she'd return the favor. "Yeah. This healer's singing could wake the dead."

Katara scoffed. "My singing is fine."

The steward didn't seem to know what to make of that. "How can I serve you, Honored Lady? Master Katara?"

"Tell the Firelord that Lady Beifong is awake, but still weak." Katara was clearly enjoying herself.

"You tell him that I'm awake and strong enough to kick his ass!" Toph said, pointing at the little man. Or the source of his voice, at least; she couldn't really tell where he was standing. And come to think of it, he was bigger than she was.

"Of course, honored ladies." She felt the gentle whoosh of air as he bowed to each of them in turn, then he left.

For a few blessed minutes, there was quiet, and after shifting her weight and feeling the blood flow back into her extremities, Toph was appreciating the comfort of lying down.

"I didn't want to say anything," Katara said softly, "but he really loves you."

Toph sighed. "I don't need to have my feet on the ground to tell when you're lying, sweetness. You were dying to say something. Look, he's a very lonely man and I came to visit him."

"No." Her friend leaned closer to speak more quietly. "It's not just that. His feelings are real, Toph. And I know you wouldn't stick around out of pity, so yours must be real, too."

Silence.

"Am I wrong?" Katara pressured.

Toph lifted one hand to her forehead and said nothing, and that was enough of an answer for Katara to lean back in her chair with a smug smile.

"Help me put on my normal clothes before he gets here, at least," Toph growled.

There was a screen for privacy in the corner, but getting there was a problem. As soon as her toes touched the ground, pain followed the path from the ground to her mind, and she jerked her foot back onto the bed.

"Aang said this might happen," Katara said apologetically. "Try to block the flow of chi before it gets to your body."

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Toph snarled.

Katara shrugged. Toph decided to ignore it, because there was no way Katara could have known Toph would hear the rustle of fabric and deduce that she'd shrugged. All of this gesturing to a blind person was massively rude, in her book.

As much as Aang's flowery spiritual understanding of bending irritated her, Toph could piece together what he really meant. The flow of power, from bender to element and vice versa, was something many people had to consciously abet through their forms and breathing. For Toph, who had learned bending as an extension of her body, the experience was different. She was constantly communicating with the earth to see; everything she did passively drew on the earth's power.

Stopping that connection was a pain in the ass.

She had to focus as hard on not earthbending as a novice had to focus on bending; she breathed deeply and centered herself, extending her foot out into a stable earthbending stance. Ironically, it worked; there was no pain. She could feel Katara's confused stare as she stood shakily, but she knew better than to ask Toph about it right now, or, worse, gush over her unique bending style. Ugh.

"Do you need some help?"

"No, you pervert. Go look at your own tits."

A sigh from Katara. Apparently, she just didn't appreciate a perfect joke when she heard it.

It was slow going, changing into normal clothes by feel alone, and Toph was dismayed to find they didn't fit quite right. A week in bed, even with with Katara force-feeding her body what it needed, had weakened her considerably, and her arms and legs felt like cold, brittle twigs.

"I always alter them so they fit just right," she bitched to Katara through the privacy screen, tying on her belt. "And now they're baggy, but if I take them in, what happens when I get back to normal?"

"Just get some new clothes while you recover," Katara said. "I'm sure there're at least a hundred tailors working for people in the palace alone. Hire one of them."

"I'm not made of money!"

"Uh, you kind of are."

Toph snorted.

She barely had time to climb back into bed and chug down another cup of water ("Not so fast!" Katara chided. "You'll make yourself sick!") before the door opened again. It turned out that she didn't need her seismic sense to know when Zuko was near; she knew the sound of him, the rhythm of his step and his breath, and that made her smile. Someone else came with him, but she didn't really care.

"You finally made it over here, Sparky."

"And you finally made it back to me." Zuko was not as good at hiding the emotion in his voice. He never had been.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I think we both know that no matter what happens, I'm always going to come back to you."

"Will you?" She felt the bed shift under his weight as he sat on the edge brushing stray hairs away from her face.

"I never say anything I don't mean."

"Then will you marry me? No, wait, I didn't mean to ask like that! I had it all planned out. It was going to be-"

Toph was already laughing. "For fuck's sake, Sparky. When are you going to get used to the fact that nothing in our lives is ever going to go as planned?" She reached for him, her fingers brushing against the cloth of his sleeve and tugging him down towards her.

He barely seemed to notice. She must really be weak; usually she could push him around without a problem. "Does that mean-"

"I've got conditions," she said, "but yes, I guess I'd love to marry you. Now shut up and kiss me."

"Firelord," the steward stammered, "a-a-are you-"

But it was hard to hear him over Katara's squeal.

They swore them both to silence and kicked them out with orders to find food.

"I don't trust Katara as far as I can throw her, you know," Toph said.

"She knows it's a delicate situation." Zuko's callused fingers grazed over her face, as if he was the blind one. "I can't believe you said yes. I can't believe I asked."

"Eh, there's no use resisting it," she said with a careless grin, covering his hand with hers.

"You're skin and bones," he murmured, pained.

"I'll recover." It was her bending that worried her, not her body, but this wasn't the time for her confidence to falter. It would come back.

His hands cupped her face, and she knew he was leaning of her because a few strands of his hair brushed her ear. "What are your conditions?"

She turned her head to kiss one of his palms. It was thrilling to finally, _finally_ get him alone, but she was weak, and when her heart started pounding it made her shake. "First, I understand that I'm going to adopt a lot of Fire Nation traditions, but you've got to understand that I won't be a normal Firelady. From what I heard, they mostly sit around, look pretty, and have kids. I mean, I've got not issue with the second two, but I'm not going to sit around. For one thing, I love vigilante justice."

"I know who you are, Toph. You're a natural leader and you almost laid down your life to save this city. That's the kind of Firelady this nation deserves. Besides," he reasoned, "your justice wouldn't be vigilante if you're the queen. It'd just be justice."

"There's a scary thought," she said.

He did his little pathetic Zuko half-laugh. "What else do you want?"

"Before we get married, I need to go do a few things, quietly, no questions. Alone."

"Things?"

"Old business," she said shortly. "And a little new business. I said no questions."

"Of course." He paused, and she could practically hear the demanding questions he was holding back. "At least take a small escort detail with you."

"No way. I've always travelled alone."

"But as the future Firelady-"

"I'll think about it," she interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. Even that took too much effort, and she was starting to realize just how hungry she was. "Third, and final condition, and I know I'm going to regret this: I want a seat on your council. I own like a quarter of Yu Dao, after all."

His hands stilled on her face; she could feel his surprise. "Really? You could have had that whenever. I never thought you cared."

"Yeah, I know, but I didn't feel like asking until now."

"Done. Anything else?"

"Nah. Those are the big ones."

"I have a few conditions, too," Zuko said. His caution was almost palpable. "You need to take the healers' instructions seriously and really recover before you leave. Katara thinks it'll be a few weeks."

"For fuck's sake," Toph muttered.

"And," he went on, "I came up with an idea while you were sleeping, and I want to try it out. As long as you're recovering, I'm going to teach you to read."

"For _fuck's sake! _I'm blind!"

"I took that into consideration," he promised. "Deal?"

If she kept caving instead of telling him to fuck off, love was going to be a hassle. "Deal. Let's kiss on it."

"Fine, but no groping me this time," he said. "You're still too weak."


	7. Chapter 7 - Recovering

**_Author's note: _**_This chapter is fluffy and feels like it wanders around without purpose, so sorry/enjoy, depending on your taste. I'm working on a much darker Toko AU story, so updates here might be slower. I would like to finish the entire AU story before I start posting chapters. Thanks for reading guys!_

* * *

><p>It was irritating not to be able to do anything, but at the same time, it was nice not to have to do anything.<p>

Katara brought food and Iroh, they all ate together, and Toph fell asleep in the middle of lively conversation. When she woke up she was in her usual room, not the medical wing anymore. She knew without being told that Zuko had carried her there. She almost wished she'd stayed awake for that.

"Sugar Queen?" she grumbled. It took too much out of her to roll over or even breathe too deeply.

"You're up?" Katara asked brightly. "Oh, good. I'll have them bring up some food. It sure is nice having servants around."

"I guess," Toph said cautiously. Katara was way too fucking cheerful for her liking. "Why are you so chipper?"

"You're doing really well, actually. You're going to need to sleep a lot, but you're already a lot stronger."

"Great." She carefully flexed one knee. It popped, but she was able to prop her foot up on the other knee and pick her toes. Oh, that was a glorious feeling! It had been too long. "What else is going on?"

"Um, Aang and Sokka are on their way back. Oh, and Zuko is having a council meeting tomorrow. Iroh can't wait, beause he's been dying to celebrate and he has to keep it quiet until the announcement is official."

"You know," Toph said thoughtfully, "I'm beginning to think that Iroh actually planned this whole thing. He invited me here for the stupid unity banquet, but he told me to come way early, and he kept trying to make Zuko and I run into each other."

"He's pretty good at matchmaking, then," Katara smiled. "I never thought you'd let yourself be tied down anywhere, much less in a palace."

Toph snorted.

Katara stuck around until she'd eaten and kept everything down, and then she went to rest. As much as Toph hated to admit it, she'd have to thank Katara one of these days for her dogged devotion to keeping the earthquake victims alive, including herself.

She slept again, but only for a couple of hours. The next time she awoke, it was to a gentle hand on her shoulder. She blinked the dryness from her eyes and shifted. "Sparky?"

"It's me." Even when his voice was hushed, it had that rough, throaty edge to it that she loved. "It's pretty late. I had a lot of work to do today. Do you wanna go back to sleep?"

"No way. I had to nearly die to get everyone to leave us alone together. I've earned this."

She started to move herself over, but his arms slid beneath her legs and shoulders and he took her spot on the bed, leaning his back against the headboard as he held her in his lap.

"Wow," she breathed. Her head rested comfortably against his shoulder, her nose at the perfect height to nuzzle into his neck if she lifted it a little. When she did, she could smell a faint hint of his sweat. She'd caught his unique scent before, when they sparred and their bodies passed closely, but now she could freely admit that it flat-out turned her on. "I really love the way you smell."

"I smell?" He frowned.

"In a good way. Ugh, I think I always liked it. Not during the war, I guess, I never noticed, but afterwards, when we'd have those reunions and we'd both be on Appa."

"I thought you were holding onto me because you hate flying."

"I do hate flying!" She smiled. "But Aang put handles on Appa's saddle for me. Holding onto you was just for fun."

He leaned forward, drawing her tighter and higher against his body, and brushed his lips against hers.

She tilted her head up and kissed him harder.

She had expected him to lean back and break away, trying to keep his distance, as usual; but to her surprise, he groaned against her mouth, a low, throaty sound that made her heart pound and sent shivers down her spine. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he ran his tongue along her upper lip slowly.

And then he seemed to realize what was happening and pull back, breathing so hard that his chest pushed against her each time he inhaled.

"Wow," she said again.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Let's take it a little slower."

"Ugh." Too bad she didn't have the energy to protest.

They relaxed in companionable silence for a little while. Toph firmly believed that if you couldn't be comfortably silent with someone, they weren't worth your time. The fact that there was now an overwhelming sexual tension between them was merely an added dimension to their time together, one that she had seen coming at a distance. They were both fiery and passionate. It was only a matter of time before it came to this.

In fact, it probably would have come to this a lot sooner if Zuko hadn't developed ironclad self-control over the past few years. He probably didn't even notice how tightly he held himself in check. Anything that would indulge his desire or excitement or temper was given the cold shoulder. The firelord's cold shoulder! There was a knee-slapper.

Toph, on the other hand, didn't believe in depriving herself of fun. If she'd ever found anyone she could tolerate before Zuko, she wouldn't have hesitated. There'd been a couple of guys she'd been interested in, but at the end of the day, she found them way too annoying to get serious. Satoru sprang to mind. He was sweet and clever, no doubt, and she didn't mind helping him out with the factory, but he never shut the fuck up. And really, if a guy was too sweet, she didn't think she could subject them to the full strength of her playful scorn, and wouldn't that be a dull relationship?

"Are you ready to read?" Zuko asked.

Toph groaned. "You really want to kill the mood, don't you?"

He exhaled against her hair. It passed for a laugh, she supposed. "Whenever you're away, I want to be able to send letters for you, only you, to read."

"So is this some kind of code? Sounds like a harebrained Sokka idea."

"Sort of. And he did help me a little." Zuko leaned over, and she heard the rustle of thick parchment. His hand closed over hers, and he directed her fingers to a cluster of raised lines. "I was going to write out the same characters I paint with ink, but they're small and complex. Sokka pointed out that it'd take a long time for you to pick out the details of each one, so we switched to this."

Toph was a quick learner, even when she was a reluctant student, and even when Zuko's body was pressed against hers, distracting her from her lesson. He guided her through reading the few short pages, some children's story from the Fire Nation.

He left after that, but he came back the next night, and the next, and as she gained strength she found herself reading with greater ease. Reading! Five days later he gave her a pile of notes on Fire Nation history, and she was so bored she worked through them in two nights. After that, he gave her a transcribed book on wedding customs.

She was nearly well enough to begin to walk about on her own by then, and just in time. A week and a half after she woke up, she asked Katara to help her get ready. The next day was Zuko's first council meeting since the earthquake, and she fully intended to be there to defend herself and Zuko against a roomful of angry Fire Nation nobles for the first time. Probably not the last.


	8. Chapter 8 - Official

Suki stopped by the next morning.

"Where were you, anyway?" Toph asked Suki, doing a little bit of stretching in her room. Bending still gave her a fierce headache, so she'd bullied a servant into bringing her a staff to walk with, though she'd pretend it was for fighting and not ensuring she didn't walk into a wall. "I haven't seen you since I yelled at you just before the earthquake."

"I went with Aang and Sokka," she said. Toph could tell from her voice that she was leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed and one leg propped on the other, but that's only because she'd sensed that pose and that tone of voice together so many times from Suki. It was nice to be able to see through memory, if no other way.

"Oh, that makes sense. So they're back, too?"

"They just got in a few minutes ago," Suki explained. "Appa is exhausted, so I think they're taking care of him first."

"And then Twinkletoes and Sugar Queen will need a few minutes together," she calculated. "I guess I've got no right to roll my eyes at that anymore."

"You don't," Suki said, smug.

"Did you tell them?" Toph asked, narrowing her eyes in Suki's direction.

"What, about your dates? There wasn't really time, and I couldn't mention you without the two boys getting mopey. I swear, men have no faith. Katara and I never doubted you'd be fine."

Toph laughed. "Zuko was a fucking mess. I guess it was pretty sweet," she said doubtfully. She wasn't an expert on sweet; that was more Katara's expertise. "Anyway, I'm glad you're back. After I fight it out with the council today Iroh wants to throw a big stupid party and it'll be a lot better with the old gang. You know, people who don't have huge sticks up their asses. Plus, I need your help with meeting a few competent soldiers, but we can worry about that later."

"Soldiers? What are you planning? Does Zuko know about this?"

"It was his idea," Toph said dismissively, straightening up. Her body had stiffened up as well as atrophying while she recovered, and it would take a while to get backc on track. She reached for her staff. "Anyway, let's worry about that later, I've gotta—"

"SIFU BLIND-O!" someone shouted.

It took Toph a moment to realize that it was both Aang and Sokka shouting at once, their shrill male voices blending into one greeting. Sokka slapped her on the back and Aang probably bowed, judging by the rush of air and the angle of his voice.

"I hope you assholes didn't hold Suki back too much, out there," Toph said. "What's the situation along the coast?"

"There was a lot of damage," Aang answered seriously. "We were able to barricade a few larger cities, and rebuild some of the smaller villages, but we couldn't get to all of them in time."

"Of course," Toph said. "Well, Zuko is sending out a lot of his standing army to help with the rebuilding, so at least there's a silver lining to this disaster. Without a standing army there's less noise about invasion and Fire Nation superiority. Hopefully. I guess I'll find out today."

"What's happening today?" asked Sokka. "Katara said she had to go talk to Iroh about something, but she didn't say what."

"Oh, a council meeting I'm going to, then a party," Toph shrugged. Who knew which part Katara was preparing for? Knowing her, it could be either. "Are you going to the meeting?" she asked, turning in Aang's direction.

"If it's internal Fire Nation affairs, then no," said Aang, from an entirely different direction than she expected. Why did they have to move around so much? "I don't think it's right, unless Zuko needs me there. Why are you going?"

"How much of Yu Dao do I own?" she reminded him, frowning.

"Oh, right," he said. Judging by his tone, he was about to sheepishly scratch his bald head—and there was the sound.

"Anyway, you guys have got to come to the party, or I'll die. Plus, Iroh's hosting, so he won't take no for an answer."

"Sure," said Sokka, whose voice was now just beside Suki's. Toph knew Suki wouldn't move around much.

"Um," said Aang.

"What?"

"Since when do you go to parties?" he asked, as politely as possible.

"Are you going to make me say it out loud?" Toph asked, irritated. "Fuck's sake. Fine. Zuko and I are getting married."

"Um," said Aang, again.

"WHAT."

"When did this happen?" Sokka jumped in. "No, how did it happen?" He ticked off possibilities on his fingers. "You don't care about money, so he couldn't have paid you to do it. You dont' care about fame, so…um, yeah, what is it?"

"Ugh, don't make me say it." Toph sank into a chair, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her palms.

"Holy shit," said Sokka.

"Aw, Sifu Toph is in love!" said Aang. "I knew it."

"If you want details, you're going to have to ask him," she replied dryly. "I refuse to share that kind of information with you morons."

"So the party is for your engagement," said Suki. "That explains why Iroh is so happy."

"I'm pretty sure he set us up, but I didn't realize it until I was already engaged," Toph admitted.

"That sounds like him," said Sokka.

"So when's the big day?" said Aang.

"Not for a while. I have things to do first."

She could feel them all looking at each other, confused. "Okay, everyone out," Toph snapped, making scooting motions with her hands. "I've gotta get changed for this stupid meeting. Tailor's showing up in a little while. Fuck off. I'll see you all tonight."

Her friends weren't great at taking hints. She had to physically shove them out of the room.

—-

"We'll throw you a crazy bachelor party," said Sokka, perched on the edge of the Firelord's desk.

"Tasteful," Aang interrupted his brother-in-law. "We can have a band playing traditional fire nation songs!"

"With traditional fire nation dancing girls," Sokka added. "And booze!"

"Sokka," Zuko said, tired. "You knocked half my papers to the ground, and Aang—you're standing on them. I'm glad to see you're back, but this council meeting is very important, so if you'd just let me—"

"Oh, you've had plenty of time to prepare," said Sokka, spreading his arms wide. "You probably live in this closet with your papers, don't you?"

Zuko didn't want to admit to that. "No." His voice was sullen, even to his own ears.

"If you can't take joy in a wedding, then you're definitely out of balance," said Aang.

"Are you trying to play the Avatar card to get me to ignore my work?"

Aang shrugged, half-grinning. "Maybe."

Zuko put down his pen, not that that meant anything when his papers were scattered all over the room. "That's not going to work."

"I'll transcribe more things for Toph," Sokka offered. "Whatever you want. I'm pretty fast now. Just let's have a fun party for the guys after this meeting and stuff."

Zuko considered that for a moment. "How about a road trip instead of a party? There's somewhere I've been meaning to go, and once Toph leaves, I'll be free." He paused. "I don't want her to go alone, either, so maybe Katara could go with her. Suki would have to be here guarding Uncle, of course," he added apologetically.

Sokka shrugged. "What can I say? She loves her work. Not a big fan of travelling. Ha! Big fan."

Aang made a face. Zuko rolled his eyes.

"A trip sounds good," Sokka finally admitted. "Are you going to tell us where?"

"Nah," said Zuko. "But I'll give you a hint: Aang and I have been there. You haven't."

—-

Toph had never really cared about how she looked. When she was a kid, she'd rather enjoyed being filthy and ripping up the nice things her parents gave her, a not-so-passive rebellion against rules and refinement and being treated as a breakable object.

But she also hated doing things by halves.

"I'll borrow something for today," she told the tailor, sitting in her chair and rolling her walking stick between her palms. "Extremely formal. I'm attending the council meeting."

The older woman, whose name was Kiyo, made a humming sound as her pen scratched across paper, making notes.

"Take my measurements now. I'll be gone for a few weeks, but when I get back, I would like two or three sets of clothing appropriate for travel or combat, similar to what I'm wearing, but in fire nation colors and style. Make it as fashion-forward as you can without impeding movement. The Firelord's steward will give you the exact date I need these things ready."

"Very good, Lady Beifong," the woman murmured.

"I heard you're very creative," Toph said offhandedly. She'd asked a few of the soldiers who designed their commanding officers' wardrobe. "Don't hold back. I'll pay you well."

—-

Zuko had delayed this meeting for two weeks while Toph recovered, attending to pressing matters that followed the earthquake before he gathered up all of the talking heads of the nation to yell at him about his latest questionable decision. He didn't want to argue about marrying Toph without her present. She'd hate that.

Sitting cross-legged on the Firelord's traditional pedestal, his uncle at his right hand, he almost didn't recognize her when she walked into the room surrounded by elderly nobles. In demure, formal robes in deep red and rust, with her hair hanging down to her waist and braided back from her face, she looked like a different woman. She appeared so delicate, he almost laughed. She was the least delicate person he knew, both in spirit and in combat, but she certainly knew how to play the part. Her beauty and her grace made his heart swell with pride.

He didn't realize he was staring at her, dreamy-eyed, until his uncle poked his arm. He blinked, and realized that the avatar's entire gang had lined up along the back of the room to watch. Assholes.

He cleared his throat, and the nobles turned toward him attentively.

"Today's meeting will be short. I know we're all in the midst of rebuilding and regrouping, and for now, that is the most important thing for us to do as the wardens of our nation." He met each of his council's eyes, and glanced out at the gallery full of lesser nobles, as well, hoping each understood how pivotal their reaction to the quake would be. "I have summoned you today to honor the earthbender Toph Beifong, who saved countless lives and changed our geography on the day of the disaster. I have asked Lady Beifong to marry me, and she has accepted."

He waited.

"An earthbender cannot be your wife, Firelord," General Verai stammered. "What if your heir was an earthbender? It is unthinkable. The Firelord has always been a firebender."

"The Beifong family supported Ba Sing Se against both of our seiges," Lord Hashi rumbled.

"They supported us, too," said Lady Li. "They're duplicitous. And there isn't even a daughter in their family. I've never heard of one."

"Have any of you met this young lady?" General Shurai interjected. "She saved the city, and the people out on the streets love her."

"When did you meet her?" Lord Hashi asked gruffly.

"I helped train her students, weeks ago. This is the same woman who singlehandedly invented metalbending. If any earthbender is worthy of our Firelord, Toph Beifong is the one."

"What about Lady Mai?" said one fat old man whose name Zuko always forgot. "She came from a good, loyal family. The daughter of the governor of New Ozai, wasn't she?"

"She's married," Lady Li informed him. "And there haven't been any steady prospects since. Let's face the fact that our Firelord needs an heir."

Zuko didn't like the direction this was going in. "Enough." He stood up. "The decision is made, and it's a suitable reward for the lady who saved our city." He almost gestured at the gallery, and then realized he would have made an idiot of himself in front of half the nobles of his kingdom. She was blind, she couldn't see his stupid hand movements. He stepped down from the dais and went to her, people parting and bowing before him as he passed. He extended his hand to her and drew her beside him.

She didn't say a word, and carried herself with such natural poise that he almost thought he'd grabbed the wrong woman out of the crowd. But no; those eyes, that hint of a sardonic smile, the rebellious set of her jaw as she walked into certain disapproval. He guided her carefully up the dias, and she took her place beside him, opposite Iroh. When she sat down, her dress folded perfectly and symmetrically under her. How did she do that?

"The wedding will be in six months' time," he said evenly. "That is plenty of time to allow for recovery and reconstruction in the city, as well as travel and planning. Any question of earthbenders inheriting will be addressed as it arises." It may never be a problem, he thought to himself. "We are entering a new age as a nation. This era will be defined by cooperation and progress, not brute force. This marriage is a symbol of cooperation. It is also a love match." He met the gazes of everyone around the table evenly, just waiting for someone to challenge him. Come on, he begged them with his eyes. Say something. Just try it.

His anger remained unleashed, tightly controlled, like a storm in his belly. He parted his lips to exhale, and his breath was unnaturally hot, though there was no flame. The silence extended, and to his surprise, no one said a thing. Not even Toph.

But if he thought she'd stay silent for long, he was wrong. They moved on, with little trouble, to the issue of the roads leading into and out of the city. They were backed up for miles in both directions.

"I feel partly responsible for that," Toph interjected. "But now that I know it's a problem, the Avatar and I can fix it in the next few days."

No one knew how to react to her speaking. Luckily, Iroh helped out.

"How long will it take?" he asked.

"Best guess, a day or two of solid work," she answered easily. "I suggest we get some of the engineers in the military to design pulley systems to bring cargo up to the city, as well. That slows down traffic."

"My son is head of the design corps," said General Shurai. "I can tell him to bring you some plans."

"Have them sent to the Firelord," Toph said.

Zuko was impressed that she didn't make a joke about being blind. She could have gotten in a good one if she'd wanted to, though.

She seemed to have a clever suggestion for everything, and slowly the council relaxed a little. Zuko expected some nasty tactics from them, especially since some of them had daughters around his age, but for now, at least, there was a tentative acceptance. It was happening. He was getting married.


End file.
